Haven't been to NY either, and haven't really heard of the phrase "New York wannabes". But I did visit Sydney and quite like it. I'm sure many cities will have similarities, that's inevitable. But there's also a certain charm to each city, and it's up to the traveller to find and experience it.

Strange that no one else has heard this, because I constantly hear talk of Toronto wanting to be "like New York." In one of the most famous examples of this, in 1987, the very funny Peter Ustinov called Toronto “New York run by the Swiss.”

Perhaps you have to live there for it to register. More generally in Toronto, we often hear talk, especially from local politicians, of trying to make Toronto a "world-class" city, by which they mean the kind of place that tourists will want to flock to like New York.

Tourists often compare Toronto unfavourably to New York because of the similiarities. If you are going to go to a big city and are on the East Coast of the USA, why go to Toronto when you can go to New York?